‘Catholic vote’ exists in Scotland

Independent report: Scottish Catholics more likely to vote Labour than any religious group

A new report has found strong evidence that Catholics in Scotland vote with remarkable consistency, proving the existence of a ‘Catholic vote’ here.

The London-based think-tank Theos published the report Voting and Values in Britain: Does Religion Count? this week and it revealed Scottish Catholics were more likely to vote Labour than any other religious group in the country, as seen in voting patterns in the 2010 UK General Election.

The report, which analysed data from the past 50 years from the British Election Survey and the British Social Attitudes survey, discovered that even this high level of support represented a tailing from the height of support from Scottish Catholics for the Labour party. In the 1997 UK General Election nearly 80 per cent of Scottish Catholics voted Labour, a figure that dropped to 65 per cent by the 2010 election. Even this later figure was still double the level of support for the Labour Party among English Catholics.